(Disclaimer: I am not J.R.R. Tolkien, these are not my characters, and this is not my franchise.)

What's Up Doc?

Sam sighed as he made the C-Bird turn a corner. "I still can't believe Gollum wasn't mad at you for getting him off his medication. He usually goes right to the source with these sort of things."

Frodo shrugged in the front passenger's seat. "He said it was only fair what happened. He tried to feed me to a spider, so he thinks getting taken off of his meds and nearly dying from heart failure serves him right. Itold Smeagol he really shouldn't think of it that way, but he's still sticking with that conclusion."

"At least he's being reasonable," Sam admitted quietly.

It was three days after the incident in the hospital room. The issue with Wormtongue had been resolved with a wary apology from Sam, and after a reluctant confession and explanation from Eomer, the leech-crafting doctor was released from St. Radaghast and returned to his work at the West Orthanc Clinic. Merry had been knocked unconscious in the scuffle, and had only regained consciousness this morning. However, the recuperating hobbit said he'd preferred his nice quiet coma to the never-ending Two Towers marathon that his scrawny new roommate was forcing him to endure now. This seemed only a minor inconvenience to Sam when he looked at the ease in which these problems had been resolved. But he was not ready to celebrate this success just yet; there was still one more problem left to deal with.

"I still don't see why I have to do this," Pippin complained from the back seat.

"You want to settle your problem with Gimli, don't you?" Frodo asked him. Pippin gave no response.

"Oh come on, Pippin," Sam chimed in. "Things are going so good right now. Merry came out of his coma, Wormtongue's off my back, Deagol's going to anger management, and Gollum's gonna be released in two days. You might as well burry the hatchet with Gimli now and make everything right."

"It's him burying his hatchet that I'm worried about," Pippin pointed out. "Right in the middle of my head."

"Well we need a fourth person anyway," Sam concluded.

"I don't know why Gimli wanted me to show up, though," Frodo added. "He's got Balin in on this too; that's four people. Why does he want an extra person?"

"I don't know. Maybe you're an understudy." Sam spotted the road sign he'd been looking for and pulled over to parallel park. "Alright, let's do this. You got your hat, Pippin?"

"Yeah, right here," the younger hobbit grumbled, holding up a home-made Indian headdress. The accessory consisted of a single headband, made of blue and red construction paper, and it had a handful of pastel-colored feathers glued to it all around. It looked like a four-year-old had made it.

"Good," Sam said with a nod, then he placed a plastic yellow construction worker's helmet on his own head and got out of the car.

The three hobbits found their dwarven companions standing on the sidewalk a few cars up, accompanied by a very unamused elf in a leather jacket. Gimli had donned his infamous sailor cap for the event, and Balin was wearing a rather realistic-looking policeman hat. Clutched in their hands were a battered looking electric guitar and a red cowboy hat. Listlessly, the two groups approached each other.

Pippin looked up in surprise at the elf, suddenly recognizing him. "Legolas?"

"Hello, Pippin," the Mirkwood prince nodded.

"What're you supposed to be?"

Legolas looked away with a bleak expression. "Eye candy."

Gimli pointed a sausage-sized finger at Frodo just then. "Can you play a guitar?"

"No," the dark-haired hobbit answered truthfully.

"Well you better learn fast," the dwarf grumbled, then he shoved the purple instrument into Frodo's hands. In turn, Balin took the cowboy hat and cheerlessly clapped it on top of Frodo's head, furrowing his brow. He could tell that Mr. Baggins was going to be an iffy background musician.

Once their unwilling guitarist was seated on the ground, the other four lined up in a row beside him. Balin sighed as he adjusted the position of a tin can sitting in front of the group, then turned to Gimli and asked, "Which song should he play first?"

His red-bearded cousin paused in thought, then replied, "Maybe we should start off with the big hits, just to their attention faster."

Balin nodded and told Frodo the name of a song. "Alright, boys," he mumbled to the rest. "You know the words."

Frodo hesitated for a second, then figuring that there was nothing he could possibly do to make this sound good, began strumming randomly on the guitar strings. The other four listened to a few painful notes, and when the moment was right, they all stepped forward and burst into song.

"Young man!
There's no need to feel down!
I said young man!
Get yourself off the ground!
I said young man!
'Cause you're in a new town!
There's no need to be unhappy!
"

The song went on for another verse, during which Sam, Pippin, Gimli, and Balin began performing a somewhat synchronized dance. Frodo played his guitar slightly louder in hopes of covering up the flatness in their voices, and Legolas was keeping himself busy by smiling and winking at every female who walked past the pitiful show. Once the second verse finished, Sam grudgingly stepped forward to lead the famous chorus.

"It's fun to stay at the—"

The others all threw their arms up as one. "Y, M, C, A!"

"It's fun to stay at the—"

"Y, M, C, A!" They were all bobbing up and down as they formed the giant letters.

"They have everything,
For young men to enjoy!
You can hang out with all the boys!
"

All around them, the hoards of busy elves, men, dwarves, and hobbits continued on their ways, most of them oblivious to the four pint-sized Village People dancing in front of them. Despite this, Legolas continued to wink, Frodo continued to play, and Sam, Pippin, Gimli, and Balin only sang louder, all of them determined to keep their performance going strong as they danced on the sidewalk of their strange little city.

It was going to take them ages to pay for that windshield.

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THE END

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I know! I hate to see this story end too! It's been so much fun writing it, and I'm very grateful to all of you for reading and reviewing it so loyally over the past two and a half years. Your insight has made tinkering with this crazy storyline all the more worthwhile!

In fact, I've enjoyed working on this fanfiction so much that I am actually considering writing a sequel. I'm not sure exactly when the story would be up, because I'm still trying to work out the basic storyline. I don't want this to be some half thought out sequel that loses a lot of the original quality, and it's gonna be especially tough for me to top or at least match What's Up Doc?.

So fans of this story, keep your fingers crossed for What's Up Doc: More Madness in the near future.

Good-bye for now, hobbitses!